


Understanding Your CI - 101

by Mums_the_Word



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1818559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mums_the_Word/pseuds/Mums_the_Word
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter suspects that Neal has sabotaged an FBI operation and is contemplating sending him back to prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Understanding Your CI - 101

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Treon for her insights and her unending patience with the re-writes.

      Peter was furious! The White Collar division had been working for months to identify and take down an unknown connoisseur of Etruscan antiquities. Every museum, gallery and serious collector in the city had been hit over the last six months. The person who was afflicted with Greco-Roman greed hired local talent in the city to steal the object or objects that he coveted. Apparently, he was an equal opportunity employer because the modus operandi was all over the place. Sometimes it was a heist, sometimes a smash and grab, and sometimes a slick in-and-out job before the alarm was even triggered.

      Peter’s blood pressure shouldn’t be hovering near the stratosphere because they had, in fact, taken down the guy with the itch for ancient artifacts. Neal had managed to unearth his identity, and, with the aid of a search warrant for his home, the treasure trove of priceless relics was discovered. This all happened, of course, the day after the latest robbery when the current thief was supposed to be making the latest delivery. The man arrested for subcontracting the work was not in a cooperative mood. He immediately clammed up after demanding to see his lawyer. This was not unexpected, so the FBI had a backup plan.

      The strategy was to nab the robber of the week when they made the delivery today, then offer him a deal to name names and roll on the others. However, the perpetrator of this heist never showed up. Peter suspected ....no that wasn’t right… Peter just _knew_ in his gut that Neal had planned it that way so the current thief, probably a friend, wouldn’t be caught. He had tipped them off!

      The target of his wrath was right here at the site of the “arrest that never took place,” so Peter strode angrily over to Neal, grabbed his arm roughly, and dragged him outside. He all but threw the young man into the side of his Taurus. Neal’s eyes went wide at the steam he saw coming out of Peter’s ears, but he tolerated the manhandling. He was a smart, perceptive “criminal” Peter reminded himself, so he probably knew Peter’s reaction was coming.

     “You feeling pretty smug, Caffrey? You played me for a fool so you must be extremely pleased with yourself right about now!” Peter’s voice was low and laced with venom.

     “Peter,” Neal began softly, “You nabbed ‘Mr. Big Bad Guy.’ Shouldn’t you be happy about that?”

      “But I didn’t tie up all the loose ends, now did I, Neal? And that’s because you seem to forget which side of the street you’re working. You can’t have it both ways, pal. You’re either one of the good guys now, or you’re really still the bad guy just playing dress-up and giving a convincing performance.”

      Neal didn’t utter a word during Peter’s rant. It was just another variation of his “you can either be a con or a man, but you can’t be both” parable. He just looked intently at Peter with a guileless expression.

      “You’ve probably warned every thief that was involved with this operation. Tell me that isn’t so!” Peter demanded. In truth, Neal had only given Alex Hunter a “heads up” because they had a history and he owed her.

      “Peter, contrary to what you may think, I have not made the acquaintance of every burglar, robber, bandit and crook in New York City,” Neal calmly answered.

      “I’m not going to parse words with you, Neal. Get in the car!” Peter ordered.

      After Neal obediently complied, Peter took out his handcuffs and attached Neal’s left wrist to the steering wheel. “Don’t pick these,” he spat within inches of Neal’s face. Peter knew that Neal could be out of them in a heartbeat, so it was really a symbolic gesture. He then fiddled with his phone and informed Neal that he had set his radius to within 50 yards of Peter. Angry and frustrated, Peter felt the distinct need to wield his control.

      After everything was processed and wrapped up at the scene, Peter found Neal still tethered. His head was angled back against the seat and his eyes were closed. They drove in a stilted silence to June’s house and Peter walked behind Neal’s back all the way to the loft door. Once inside, Peter finished his tirade.

      “You are under house arrest, Neal, until I say otherwise. You will not leave this room, you will not pass “Go,” and you will not collect $200. I’ll decide in the next few days if I’m going to send your ass back to prison because this thing between us isn’t working.”

      With that being said, Peter again used his phone to re-calculate Neal’s radius to the loft, turned on his heel and slammed the door. Neal could hear his angry footsteps recede down the stairs.

 ***************

      Finally back home in Brooklyn, El took one look at Peter’s face and frowned. Even Satchmo put his tail between his legs and sought the security of his dog bed.

      “Okay, Hon, tell me about whatever ‘it’ is before we sit down to dinner. You’re so tied up in knots that you’ll never get any food down your esophagus.” Elizabeth sagely suggested.

      Peter grabbed a beer and plopped himself down on the sofa with a huff. “It’s Neal, as if that would come as a surprise to you.”

      El sighed, “What’s he done now?”

      “He’s playing his games with me, El. He’s letting his cronies get away with crimes just to spite me, to throw in my face that I can’t control him! He’s not being honest with me. He probably couldn’t do honest if his life depended on it.” Peter was working himself up into another rant.

      “Has he been lying to you, Peter?” El didn’t think that was their dynamic. She was under the impression that it was a point of honor with Neal that he didn’t lie to Peter.

      “Well, not per se, but he’s being duplicitous by not offering to tell me the whole truth when he knows it. So, in my book, that’s lying and treachery.”

      “Wow,” El thought to herself. Peter’s assessment of Neal’s ulterior motives of spite and malice didn’t jive with her picture of their relationship. This seemed to be serious, and then she wisely concluded that her husband wouldn’t be this worked up unless he was emotionally worried about his pet project…..a young conman who could worm his way into your heart before you even knew it. Peter was angry because he was disappointed, and she could understand his frustration.

      “I just may have to call our whole deal off, El, and send him back to Super Max.” Peter face was now more morose than angry.

      “I think that you may need to step back for a time to see if you have a different perspective in a few days. You should never make really important decisions in the heat of anger, Peter,” El cajoled.

 *****************

      So, Peter left Neal in his loft for the next two days while he went to the office and busied himself with mind-numbing paper work. Both Jones and Diana jokingly asked if Neal was in a “time out,” but slunk back to their desks at the look on Peter’s face. After the work day ended, Peter really didn’t feel like going home since Elizabeth had an event tonight and wouldn’t be home until near midnight. He certainly didn’t want to nurse his disillusionment in an empty house, so he stopped in a bar near his home in Brooklyn. Taverns always managed to have a big screen television with some kind of game on. Maybe that’s what he needed right now to take his mind off his troubles.

      The little hole-in-the wall establishment was almost empty at this hour, so he was practically the only patron seated on a barstool nursing a whiskey. The bartender, a gray-haired man clearly the far side of fifty, watched Peter for a bit, then tentatively said, “Looks like you’ve had a bad day.”

      “Actually,” Peter replied, “It’s been more like a bad week.”

      “What kind of work do you do,” asked the bartender conversationally.

      “I’m an FBI agent,” was the terse reply.

      “Hey…... a fellow lawman! I was a homicide detective in the 27th precinct for almost 30 years, at least until I caught a bullet and had to retire early on disability.” The man held out his hand and introduced himself, “Jim Reiter.”

      “Peter Burke. Nice to meet you.” The men shook hands across the bar.

      “So, what’s the problem, Peter, that is, if you can talk about it? I may not be wise, but I’ve learned to be a good listener,” Jim offered.

      “Oh, it’s not work-related,” Peter began then backtracked. “Well, yes, it is work-related. It’s my CI…... he’s causing me grief.”

      Jim smiled faintly as he mused, “Yeah, CIs can be a handful. I’ve had my share of them when I was on the job. Some of them were good and then some were….... let’s just say, not so good. So where does yours fall on the curve, Peter?”

      “Oh, he’s good at what he does. We solve cases and our closure rate is way up there,” Peter answered.

      “But?” Jim gave Peter a come hither look to continue.

      “I just can’t trust that he’s a hundred percent invested in the right side of the law,” Peter answered honestly. “I mean, he doesn’t actually lie to me, but then he doesn’t tell the whole truth. He sometimes plays things close to the vest and I miss out on the big picture. It’s like I’m always trying to figure out his end game and I’m a step or two behind. It’s damn frustrating, let me tell you!”

      Jim chuckled, “That’s the nature of the beast, my friend. I would venture a guess that 99% of all CIs look at the law with a different perspective than you and me. What they do for us is a quid pro quo situation, not out of altruism. They get us information; we give them money, which we know most will use to put drugs up their noses. Prostitutes hear things and pass it along, and we turn a blind eye while they continue to turn tricks. It ain’t pretty, but it’s just how it works out there.”

      “I work in the White Collar division, so my situation is probably a lot tamer than what you saw in homicide,” Peter acknowledged. “And my CI is on a work-release program because he was a bond forger rather than a violent criminal.”

      “It doesn’t matter, Peter. You’re still sending him out on the street with people who probably wouldn’t have a problem swatting him like a mosquito if he got in their way. It’s a dangerous world, whether its white collar crime or homicide, and we, the good guys, send them into the thick of it while we’re sitting safely far back listening to their fate through a wire. Their asses are flapping in the breeze while they tap dance as fast as they can to get the information that we want. They’re like high wire artists; they can’t look down because they might fall. And if they do fall, there’s no Solid Blue Line to salute them, and no Taps played when we bury them.”

      “But I thought I really knew him, and now I’m not so sure,” said Peter forlornly.

      “It’s hard to know someone who finds that he has to create two different personas to get the job done for you. He has to maintain his credibility on the streets and preserve those contacts or his sources dry up. He’s got to keep his hand in. It’s a sort of criminal integrity, you might call it. Then he has to rein all those impulses in and support the establishment that initially took away his freedom. We reap all the glory and the accolades when he comes through, but he doesn’t even get a pat on the head. We expect him be a team player and proud of it, but he’s really just a tool in our arsenal. There’s a definite dichotomy in play there.”

      “You said that you had some good CIs,” Peter probed. “How did you manage that?”

      “Just one really good one,” Jim said a bit wistfully. “It didn’t happen overnight, that’s for sure. We worked together for almost five years, but at the end of that time, we trusted each other without reservation. The trick is to develop that trust. It sure doesn’t come naturally to a CI, so we have to earn it. If **,** as a handler we manage to accomplish that, then hopefully we will feel comfortable trusting them in return and some of the walls will come down. They’ll actually feel safe enough to let us in.”

      “So you finally were able to turn your CI around?” asked Peter.

      “I believe that I did,” Jim answered. “But it’s something I’ll never know for sure. I found him in a dirty alley one morning with a bullet in his head. I never worked with another informant after that. I just couldn’t lose another piece of myself.”

      “Sorry,” was all Peter could think to say.

      “Yeah, me too,” replied Jim.

      Peter finished his drink and tried to pay, but the bartender insisted it was on the house as was the advice. “Just one more question before you go,” Jim added.

      Peter looked at him and awaited the question.

      “Right this minute, would you trust your CI with your life, or with your wife’s life?”

      “Yeah, I would,” Peter admitted.

      “Then you’re lucky, because you’ve got one of the good ones,” Jim smiled.

 **************

        Instead of going home, Peter headed back to Manhattan to June’s house. He climbed the stairs to Neal’s apartment and knocked on the door.

       “It’s open, Peter,” he heard Neal call.

       Neal was sitting on his sofa, tailor-style, with an oversized sketch pad and his charcoals. A pile of finished drawings sat on the floor, and a half-eaten dish of Thai food sat on the coffee table.

       “How did you know it was me?” asked Peter.

       “I can tell your tread on the stairs,” was the terse answer Neal provided.

       “I thought I’d best come over in case you were packing to leave,” Peter joked lamely.

       Neal continued to place long, sinuous lines of charcoal on his pad, and then nodded his head indicating the room in general. “Not much to pack, really, since I don’t actually own much, not even the clothes on my back. I guess I was lucky Byron and I wore the same size. But prison gives you clothes to wear, so no worries there.”

       “Yeah, well about that,” Peter began hesitantly. He was knocked off his stride when Neal looked up at him calmly with those clear blue eyes that were so unfathomable. There was no panic, no hostility or anger, no pleading, hope or resignation ……just deep azure pools that didn’t offer insight into the soul no matter what the old adage claimed.

       “Neal, I’m not sending you back to prison. It’s possible that I may have overreacted in the heat of the moment.”

       “Did Elizabeth have anything to do with that decision?” Neal expression remained inscrutable.

       “No, actually, it was my neighborhood tavern owner who helped out with that,” Peter answered honestly. At least that got Neal to raise a quizzical eyebrow, but Peter wasn’t going to indulge him with an explanation. Instead he turned the rudder sharply to steer in a completely different direction.

       “Neal, what do you ultimately want out of life?”

       His CI’s forehead wrinkled as he took in this non sequitur, trying to see five steps ahead so he could check Peter’s advance. Instead, Neal decided he didn’t want to play games, so he answered honestly.

       “Peter, I’ve learned the hard way not to plan ahead because it just sets you up for disappointment. Dreams are fragile like those soap bubbles that kids like to blow. They float just out of reach until you can actually touch them and then they disappear in the blink of an eye.”

       Peter suspected Neal was alluding to his childhood dream of the police academy, of a life with Kate, of a relationship with a father he never knew, and so many other hopes that he had once harbored in his young life.

       “That sounds really sad, Neal,” Peter said.

       “It’s not sad; it’s just pragmatism. I take life as it happens and don’t expect anything. What comes, comes, like if you decide one day to really send me back to prison, I’ll do the time. I’ve done it before, so I know I can do it again.”

       “I would hope it will never come to that,” said Peter earnestly. A shrug was his only answer.

       “Neal, I want there to be trust between us, if nothing else. I don’t want you to become my clone. I have to respect who you are, and learn to accept that, within limits, of course. I know that you are loyal to a fault, and you do have an ethical code that’s unique to you. I may not condone it, but I do understand it. I keep remembering our conversation on the phone when you were on the run in Cape Verde. Just because I’m a lawman and you’re a conman, there isn’t just one way that this will end. I think that there are happy endings, Neal. We just have to have faith and trust. I’m willing to start again, if you are.”

      Neal stared at Peter for a long, intense moment. Over the last two days he had mentally prepared himself for the inevitability of this confrontation. His protective defenses were securely in place, his vulnerabilities tamped down tightly. Neal really thought that he could sell a cavalier, “I can take anything that you can dish out” attitude. But Peter, damn him, had derailed all that by reaching out to him with forgiveness and compassion. He had managed to put a chink in Neal’s armor, and that really scared him. The young man knew that his feelings, at this point in time, were too complex and too raw to put into words. But in the end, he surprised himself by responding, “Yeah, I’m willing to try.”

      Peter’s only response to that was a genuine smile.

 

 


End file.
